How to Rebuild Friendship: Small Habits That Stick

There was a stretch of my life where I tried to optimise my way out of loneliness. More steps. More self-help. More “morning routines” stacked like Tetris blocks. I treated my nervous system like a project plan and my friendships like something that would magically survive on push notifications.

It didn’t work.

What has worked is softer, smaller, and much less Instagrammable: treating my brain with care, and treating friendship as something I train for. Less polishing, more participating. Less “be better,” more “be with.”

This is a field note from that shift — part neuroscience, part queer midlife reality, part “we do not care” energy.

Your brain is not a productivity machine (be kind to it)

A neuroscientist I admire, Rachel Barr, argues we should stop trying to hack our brain into permanent high performance and start befriending it — especially when we’re stressed, doubtful, or lonely. Her advice is beautifully practical: use cognitive appraisal when your social radar gets glitchy, “microdose delight” to interrupt stress spirals, and move in ways that actually feel good rather than punitive. It’s not vibes; it’s physiology.

This landed hard for me in early sobriety. When my brain was loud, I started taking tiny, repeatable exits: one song I love played all the way through; a walk without my phone; five minutes of sun on my face; a set of squats because my body likes pushing the floor away. None of this “fixed” anything. But it softened the edges enough that I could reach for people.

Which brings me to men, and friendship, and the weird rules we don’t admit we’re obeying.

Men aren’t bad at friendship — we’re out of practice

If you’re a guy who used to have a crew and now you mostly have a calendar, you’re not alone. A recent New York Times Magazine essay asked, Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone? The author’s answer wasn’t “kids and jobs” (though they matter). It was rules — unspoken bylaws that make hangs feel high-stakes, and a gradual drift toward efficiency over intimacy. We stopped calling. We watch a game instead of asking “How are you, actually?” We pull out of hugs at the speed of discomfort.

What that essay also offered was a route back that felt… doable. Not heroic. Social fitness: text more often than you think you should, call occasionally, see each other on purpose and on a rhythm. Not every meet-up needs to be a soul-dump. The point is recurrence. Familiarity is what lowers the stakes enough for the real stuff to come out.

For queer men, there’s an extra layer: the performance tax. We learned early to be funny, flirty, “fine.” It keeps us safe until it keeps us separate. Which is why I’ve fallen in love with another idea that’s having a moment.

“We do not care” (about the wrong things)

A viral series dubbed the We Do Not Care Club started as a very specific kind of perimenopausal rebellion — then turned into a permission slip for anyone exhausted by the gaze. The message: stop contorting yourself to please expectations that don’t love you back. Boundaries are not rudeness; they’re relief.

Translated into friendship, that energy sounds like this:

• We do not care if the plan isn’t “cool.”

• We do not care if we’re rusty at feelings.

• We do not care if the first coffee is awkward.

• We do not care if anyone on the internet would find it interesting.

We care that we showed up.

Service over self-optimisation (the meaning part)

Another concept I’ve loved learning more about lately came from the Baha’i tradition to sketch five daily lessons for a happier life. The one that stuck: you can’t be happy by chasing your own happiness first. Serve other people and the joy sneaks up on you from the side.

This matches everything I’ve watched in recovery and in community building: if I aim for “feel better,” I can doomscroll myself into a stupor; if I aim for “be useful,” I end the day lighter. It’s not martyrdom. It’s math.

Friendship, on purpose: six practices that actually help

Here’s what I’m doing now — small, repeatable, imperfect steps. I challenge you to build one this week and layer another next month.

1) Micro-delights, daily.
Treat your nervous system like a teammate. One song, one sun patch, one page of a book, one tiny stretch so delicious you want another. When the noise drops 10%, it’s easier to text back, to invite, to stay.

2) The T-C-S rule (text, call, see).
Steal this straight from social-fitness land: text weekly, call monthly, see quarterly. Put two friends on a quiet recurring reminder. Keep the texts low-effort (“thinking of you + a photo of something dumb”), the call short, and the hangs anchored to something that already exists (run club, market stroll, lap at the beach).

3) Recurring > heroic.
One Thursday coffee with the same two mates beats a quarterly “epic” night that never materialises. You’re building a groove, not a movie montage.

4) Make it easy to say yes.
Offer two time slots, one simple activity, and the out: “If not, I’ll try again next week.” Remove the performative layer (no venue flex, no 8PM mystery bar in a suburb no one can spell).

5) Service as a shortcut.
Invite someone into usefulness: “I’m dropping soup to a friend — want to walk it over with me?” “Beach clean-up Saturday, 20 minutes, then coffee?” Helping together creates warmth without a feelings lecture.

6) The “we do not care” boundary bundle.
We do not apologise for short notice. We do not over-explain no’s. We do not put ourselves on read because we don’t have the perfect reply. We reply anyway — badly, kindly, now.

A night I almost bailed on (and why it mattered)

When I first relocated back to Sydney, I nearly cancelled on a mate I hadn’t seen one-on-one in years! Long day. Cold night. The couch was magnetic. “We do not care,” I told myself, we stuck to the plan, and I went anyway.

It wasn’t transcendent. We ate average food, swapped small updates, laughed at nothing, reminisced about old times, people and places, and stumbled into one honest paragraph about how each of us was really doing. On the walk back to my apartment I felt weirdly buoyant, like my insides had been aired out. The old door — the one that says “friendship requires a big occasion” — swung open to reveal something far more ordinary and generous: this counts. It counts every time you repeat it.

That’s the thing no “optimise your life” carousel told me: intimacy isn’t intensity. Intimacy is rhythm.

If you’re queer, sober(ish), tired — or all three

You don’t have to be the life of anything. You don’t need a character. You don’t need a perfect script. You can be the guy who leaves early, the friend who prefers walks to bars, the person who texts “I’m off socials this weekend — coffee?” and means it.

Your brain will still have noisy days. Micro-delight it. Your calendar will still feel heavy. T-C-S it. Your fear of being too much or not enough will still pipe up. “We do not care,” say kindly, and go anyway.

And when in doubt, serve. If happiness won’t be chased directly (it won’t), aim sideways: toward someone else’s good day. The joy sneaks up.

Start here this week (tiny homework)

• Text one person: “Walk Fri or Mon? 20 mins. Low chat required.”

• Micro-delight once a day: one song, eyes closed, no multitask.

• Put one recurring hang in the diary: same day, same time, same two humans.

• Say one boundary out loud: “I’m turning my phone-off for an hour; I’ll reply after.”

• Do one small service: help carry something (groceries, a pram, a box), cook/bring a meal or snack, check in on someone (quick “thinking of you” text or call), or cheer them on (show up to a game/gig, send a “you’ve got this” before an interview).

If it feels awkward, perfect. That sensation is social muscle tearing a little so it can grow.

Be gentle with your brain. Be consistent with your people. That’s the soft rebellion — and it works.